Chips in Bodies

July 29, 2017

I woke up thinking about whether I would implant microchips into my children after reading an article the night before regarding a group of employees in Wisconsin who have agreed to do so. Not because the kids have been naughty or missing or restless, but solely because they will be teenagers in the near future. I expect that, based on my history, and the natural mischievousness of some young humans, that Jrue and/or Jai will eventually demonstrate a degree of major or minor resistance to our household government. To stop just short of committing a crime against them, the hubs and I will have to unlock some clever methodology to remind the kids of who’s in charge and why that’s so.

I was a teenaged girl not too long ago. As a 17-year-old who was eagerly preparing to go away to college, I invented notions that I was responsible enough to set my own time schedules and personal relationships while disregarding the safety and respect parameters my parents had enforced in their home.

Yep. I’m airing it out.

Hi, mom.

In my underdeveloped brain, as long as my grades remained A’s and B’s, I could work part-time at a local movie theater and execute my duties as a varsity cheerleading co-captain with little dissent from my parents. I was regarded as a “good girl.” Therefore, in spare time, I was slowly permitted to go on dates, which ultimately began a hormonally-propelled disdain for curfews or any rules determining when I could or could not do what I unjustifiably wanted.

To test the waters of an ever-challenging underaged contention that can exist between teen child and parents, I spent several months stretching my curfew limits. Like most, I subconsciously certified that it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission and be denied. So, I began to stay out 15 minutes too late, 30 minutes too late, then didn’t glance at a clock while out at all. Consequently, I was placed on restrictions and was not allowed to drive my car received mere months earlier.

Instead of straightening up and focusing on college preparation, I insisted on my brand of stupid sneaky.

One particular night that I spent hanging out at a friend’s house, I recall opening the front door for him to drive me back home to find my dad parked in the driveway at the house, headlights beaming forward, his jawline focused, tightened like an assassin’s. It was the most scared I had ever been sitting in the car with my dad…my embarrassment burned my cheeks and my shame as his oldest and usually most well-behaved was palpable. I just knew he was going to run us into a guard rail as my punishment, even as he drove painfully slowly.

Here’s where microchipping me would have been valuable for my parents.

At least at that moment that night, I was actually where I said I was going to be. I honestly wasn’t always at the location 100% of the time I told my parents I’d be. I took their savvy intelligence for granted…I know now that they often knew what I was up to, but couldn’t pinpoint details until I was caught in the lie.

Besides, they were teenagers themselves once. They know things. We miss that detail as foolish juveniles.

Human microchip implantation involves inserting an integrated circuit device or RFID transponder under the skin, which was first sampled by Professor Kevin Warwick in August 1998. (Witt, 1999) At the time of its first installation experiment, the chip was used to open doors, turn on lights, log into computers, and perform other tasks that normally took an authorized badge to conduct. Now, with the advancement of technology, microchipped individuals are expected to be able to have not only key card access capabilities, but the chip can “provide a digital interface to the real world centered about the holder’s identity: your ID, credit card information, bus pass, library card, and many other sources of information you currently carry in your purse/wallet. . .” (Brown, 2016)

Inserting a microchip into a child could add extra protection against such tragedies as kidnappings and losing children in public places. A child’s essential medical stats can be accessed quickly anywhere during an emergency. Worldwide, there may be an almost extinct possibility of taking the wrong baby home from the hospital after birth. Of course, concerns regarding children’s health and privacy, amongst a list of other worrying issues, should be severely considered and weighed before even thinking about microchipping.

But, mostly, a child becomes a walking, talking GPS. They become a real “Find my iPhone” app. And this tiny selling point is supportive for parents.

I know karma is coming back for that year I spent in rebellion without a cause and for the sparse subsequent moments that followed when I had lost the little bit of sense I had gained in college while visiting home during school breaks.

If I were microchipped in 2002, my parents could have had the best television-worthy “good cop, bad cop” routine to play out on my silly, clueless self. I can see their subtleties, backing me into a corner, in my head.

The realism is that microchipping children may be an option we have to enforce accountability since we are legally obligated for our children’s well-being until they reach the age of 18. If my kids feel the need to revolt early or often, the chip will serve as a parenting radar, a system constantly running that can tell me if my kids are potentially unsafe or misbehaving.

It’s a lot to think about. But the process is something we should definitely do as parents before the government attempts to mandate microchipping babies and dictating only how “beneficial” doing so will be for the future of the human race.